


many are the weak

by funvee



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, American Civil War, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-06
Updated: 2013-08-06
Packaged: 2017-12-22 16:04:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/915212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/funvee/pseuds/funvee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a battle, some surprise skirmish with the Confederates, just outside of…whatever town they’re in. Stiles can’t remember — it’s been weeks since he could remember the name of any town, let alone what state he’s in; they’ve been moving what seems like every other day. But the battle had been short, or at least, it had been for him. He had just been raising his gun to shoot across the field at the other side when something had crashed down on the back of his head, shutting down any further action.</p><p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	many are the weak

**Author's Note:**

> Just some notes before you dive into this thing:
> 
> 1\. I'm not a Civil War historian. This is particularly vague on purpose. I don't know where in the country they are, or what battle Stiles came from. Just roll with it.  
> 2\. I'm not a doctor, either - I don't know if I described Stiles' injury correctly. I apologize if it's completely off.
> 
> Thank you to my dear Lani, whose puppy-like enthusiasm is how I get through writing. 
> 
> This whole thing came to being because of a prompt given by the tumblr user [riseball](http://riseball.tumblr.com/). Thank you.

He wakes with mud in his mouth. 

It’s a slow process, waking up. Stiles takes stock of what he still has — both arms and legs, all ten fingers and toes, head firmly attached to neck. He wiggles them all slowly, testing to make sure they’re all still in working order. It’s when he lifts his head from the dirt that he discovers what caused him to black out in the first place.

There’s a pounding wound on the crown of his skull from what must have been the butt of a rifle. Stiles reaches up with tentative fingers, pressing along the edges of where it hurts until the pain whites out the edges of his vision. He has to take deep, gasping breaths until he can bring his fingers back down to eye level. When he does, he discovers they’re coated in thick, gooey blood that drips down onto his palm. He lifts his hand again, dances it down the back of his head, just under the wound and down his neck. There’s more blood there, but nothing really hurts, so it must all be from the end of the rifle. 

He lays back down in the mud, face first. 

What had happened?

There was a battle, some surprise skirmish with the Confederates, just outside of…whatever town they’re in. Stiles can’t remember — it’s been weeks since he could remember the name of any town, let alone what state he’s in; they’ve been moving what seems like every other day. But the battle had been short, or at least, it had been for him. He had just been raising his gun to shoot across the field at the other side when something had crashed down on the back of his head, shutting down any further action. 

And now he was here, with a head wound the size of…something big and — Stiles lifts his head slowly to look down along his body — no coat. It’s February and he has no coat. Which means that someone took it and left him for dead. 

He can’t stay here. There’s no way he can stay here in the mud, not when the sun is going down. The light is changing from the bright white of day to the pinky orange of sunset, and there’s no way he can stay here in this ditch all night. 

He has to work himself up to moving. The minute he raises his head anywhere above his neck, his vision is going to fizzle out, and swim with black. He concentrates on breathing, deep breaths in from the mouth, long exhales out through his nose. Again, and again, and again until he thinks he can move. He pulls his knees up towards his chest, and lays his hands out under him before he finally pushes up with his hands and swings his legs out, flipping himself up to a sitting position. 

Everything turns white as soon as his head raises, and slowly fades into darkness as he shuts his eyes, waiting for the fizziness to pass. It does after a few minutes of complete blackness, and Stiles opens his eyes. 

A field stretches out before him, void of all life. 

He’s alone. 

His platoon left him behind, and he’s alone. It’s sunset and it’s cold, and his head hurts, and it’s February, and he’s alone. He’s alone, he’s alone, he’s alone.

He gasps for breath, mouth opening wide, taking lungfuls of air as fast as he can get them. It hurts, oh god, does it hurt, but he has to breathe, he has to concentrate and breathe, remember how to breathe, Stiles? 

The panic edges away, bleeds out into something resembling calmness, even if his hands are shaking. He’s still sitting, coatless, in the wet, miry mud, but he’s not hysterical anymore. It’s a start, even if he has to somehow pull himself to standing and get away from the ditch. There’ll be a freeze tonight, and being anywhere near the wet isn’t a good idea. 

It’s when he pats the mud around him that he realizes that whoever stripped him of his coat also stole his gun. So now, he’s in the mud, coatless and weaponless. Wonderful. There’s not much he can do about it, though, so he tries to get himself to standing. 

The first try has his legs buckle under him, and he lands down into the mud on his knees. His head pounds, and his skull surely must be splitting in two, spilling his brains out onto the earth below, but when he feels along the crown of his skull, all he feels is more blood. His fingers are violent red when he looks at them, wet and dripping. Stiles needs to stop it, has to stop the blood from pouring out of him. 

He seizes the end of his shirt and rips a long strip of fabric loose. Carefully, as carefully as he possibly can, Stiles wraps it around his head, tying the ends in the front, just above his forehead. It’s loose, but he can’t tie it any tighter, not if he wants to still be able to move. 

Stiles tries again to get his feet under him, and this time around, manages it. His legs are shaky, vibrating under his weight, but ultimately they hold. It’s his head that’s the problem. It’s throbbing with each beat of his heart, each beat sending a sharp, white-hot slice through his brain. He closes his eyes, let the pain wash over him in one big cresting wave. He can’t stop it, can’t will it away with his mind, so he has to accept it, and move on. He has to move.

The forest is where he’ll go — the canopy of the trees might save him from any snow that might fall, and it’ll give him cover from anyone who might wander by throughout the night. 

It’s a slow journey from his ditch to the edge of the trees. Slow, and painful. His legs threaten to go out from under him with every step, but miraculously, they hold his weight the entire way. He picks his way through the underbrush, and ducks (slowly and oh-so-carefully) under low branches. 

The light is low by the time he finds a decent clearing to spend the night in. It’s small, enough room for maybe two or three grown men to lie down in, but if they wanted to do much else, it’d be a tight fit. There’s a nicely sized tree to the right where he can lean up against. Stiles makes his way towards it, pressing his back up against the trunk once he arrives. He lays there catching his breath with his legs out in front of him, arms flopped out to either side. 

Time passes, and Stiles slides right into that sticky, gummy place right before actual sleep takes place. The pause between each blink becomes shorter and shorter, until his eyes just slide shut. The forest quiets around him, the occasional bird the only real noise. 

Until a twig snaps to his left. 

Stiles’ eyes open in a flash, his entire body tense. He waits, unable to move from his tree. It could be an animal, something moving along the forest floor to find food, but then there’s more sounds of movement, more twigs snapping, and dead leaves crunching, and quietly, as he listens, footsteps join the fray. 

With his feet, Stiles pushes himself up straighter, so he has a better view of who’s approaching.

A man walks into the clearing wearing a Confederate uniform that’s been ripped to shreds. His eyes make quick work of the space, taking in each tree and bush until he reaches Stiles’ tree and him under it. The man freezes. Fear swamps Stiles, clamps down tight on his airway and seizes control of his lungs. He coughs, forcing his throat open so he can speak. 

“I don’t want to fight,” he chokes.

“I don’t think you can fight,” The man replies, stepping even closer. He motions towards his own head, and then towards Stiles. The wound must be worse than he thought…or maybe the makeshift bandage has bled through. Stiles holds his hands up. 

“Please…” Stiles starts, letting his head loll back against the tree trunk. The man stops moving, and studies him. 

“I don’t want to hurt you, kid,” The man adds. 

“You’re Confederate. I’m Union. Shouldn’t you kill me on principle?” Stiles says, wincing. His father always said his mouth would be the end of him, and now he might have just proven him right. Any second now, the man was going to pull out a knife, or a gun. 

Surprisingly, the man simply shrugs. “I don’t care about the war. Never have. My uncle made me join up.”

Stiles narrows his eyes at him. There’s something odd there, with the uncle thing, but he’s too tired and hurt to care properly. He opens his mouth to say something, but his head lets out a particularly painful throb, forcing him to cry out. He snaps his eyes shut, wishes the pain away, but it just keeps coming. He falls to the side, and the ground rises up to meet him.

***

He wakes to the man’s face mere inches from his own, his bright eyes searching Stiles’ face for some sign of life. Stiles shouts and tries to move away, but the man’s big hands clamp down on his shoulders and push him back against the tree.

“Hey, kid. Stop moving,” He says, getting a grip on Stiles’ jaw and tilting his head forward. Stiles can feel his fingers pressing along his skull, right along the bruises. The man brushes the actual wound and Stiles slumps against the tree trying get away from his touch, whimpering all the while. The fingers quickly disappear from his head. “Sorry, sorry, I’m sorry. I had to check. I won’t touch it again.”

“Stop calling me kid,” Stiles hisses, carefully letting his head rest against the tree again. He ignores the apologies. He doesn’t need them. 

The man reaches out once more, to pull the fabric back up over the wound. He doesn’t touch the wound again.

“What are you? Fifteen? Sixteen at most? You’re a kid.” The man answers, sitting back against his calves. He’s still close enough to reach out and touch Stiles, but he could have killed him when he was passed out, so Stiles is probably safe. For now, anyway.

“I’m a soldier,” The reply exits his mouth before he can think about it. 

“A kid soldier, maybe.”

“Why don’t you just ask me my name?”

“Fine. What’s your name?” The man looks amused, despite the worry that coats his face. Why would he worry about Stiles? They just met. He could go on his merry way and leave Stiles here. He doesn’t have to do anything, they’re on opposite sides, after all. 

That line of thought is pushed from his mind by another wave of pain that leaves his eyes watering and mind blank of anything other than the slow thud of his wound.

“Stiles,” he finally answers once he can see straight again.

The man does laugh at that, at his name, but cuts it short when he catches sight of what Stiles looks like. He watches for a moment, waits until he’s sure Stiles isn’t going to pass out again, before shaking his head. 

He says, “I’m not even gonna ask.” 

“Don’t,” Stiles breathes, chest heaving with it. The man watches him carefully, like he’s expecting Stiles to fall over on himself again. He’s tense, coiled, as if he’s ready to reach out and catch Stiles if he should so much as twitch. 

“Derek.”

“Wha?”

“That’s my name. Derek.”

“Oh. Nice t’meet you, Derek,” Stiles mumbles, head throbbing again. His vision is starting to white out at the edges again, blurring everything in sight. Maybe he shouldn’t talk so much. Maybe he should just go to sleep, deal with all this in the morning. He slides his eyes shut, lets his head roll to the side, and tries to sink into the warm feeling of sleep, but hands are back on his shoulders, shaking him.

“Stiles! Don’t go to sleep,” Derek’s shouting at him, shaking him as gently as he can. Stiles blinks awake to Derek’s face. He doesn’t push away this time, just lets his neck go loose and his head rest against the tree.

“’m s’tired,” Stiles whines, voice low, and words starting to slur. Derek shakes his head, shakes Stiles’ shoulders once more. 

“If you go to sleep, you might not wake up.”

It takes a second for the words to penetrate into his mind and form into an actual sentence with actual words that actually mean something. 

He might die. The thought slides through him like ice, chilling his insides right to the core. He didn’t think his injury was that bad. It was just a little blood, right? But if he sleeps, he might die? Stiles can’t die. His dad’s already alone back at their homestead. He can’t die and leave him alone forever. That’s not…he can’t do that. He can’t let that happen.

His breathing has gone ragged, breaths sharp and hot as they rip through his chest. Stiles gapes, grabs at air with his mouth in a wide circle. His lungs are burning, they’re on fire under his ribs and every breath is shorter and shorter until everything is white. 

Something touches his face, and it takes longer than Stiles would like to admit for him to figure out that it’s Derek’s fingers. They’re pushing against his cheekbones as Derek takes a hold of his head, to keep it steady against the tree.

“Stiles! Breathe,” Derek demands, leaning closer, like he’s coming in for a kiss. Stiles tries to pull away, but Derek adds, softer, “I’m not….I won’t let you die. Not if I can help.”

Stiles chokes out a sob and then coughs out, “Why?”

Derek’s quiet, but the tips of his fingers are digging into Stiles’ cheek painfully for a moment, before he realizes what he’s doing and slides his hands away, back into his own lap. 

“You’re alone.”

He is. He doesn’t know where his platoon is, or where the rest of the army went, or where anyone is. He’s alone out in the woods with a Confederate, a member of the opposite side, an enemy, but Derek’s sitting in front of him, concern evident on every line of his body, straight down to his fingers. He’s not acting like a bad guy, not at all, and then it hits him like a ton of bricks. 

“You’re alone, too.”

Derek nods, and rolls off his calves to sit against the tree, right next to Stiles, who rolls his head to watch him. Derek stays silent, doesn’t bother to elaborate on why he’s alone, why he’s there in that clearing, why his uniform is ripped to shreds. Stiles thinks maybe he was a deserter, and for one bright moment, is wickedly jealous of him. He could walk away from the army, walk away from the killing, from bloodshed, from everything involved, but then, at the end of the day, he’d have to show up at home, and show his cowardly face to his father. That’s a thought he can’t quite stomach.

Quiet rings out through the clearing — the only noise the sound of them breathing. The sun is fully gone now, darkness falling heavy into the forest around them. As they sit, the temperature drops almost suddenly, going from merely cold to the bitter, harsh rawness that only comes in the dead of winter. Stiles shudders against the tree, trembling as the chill of the air rips through his thin shirt. Derek looks over, eyebrows furrowed. 

“’m cold,” Stiles says in answer to the unsaid question, voice shaking just like the rest of him. 

There’s movement beside to him, but he can’t bring himself to turn his head more to see what Derek’s doing. Instantly, he’s too tired to do anything other than lay against the tree. The whole army could stomp through the clearing, and all he would do is lay slumped here, watching them as they marched by.

“Move forward,” Derek says, face close again. Why does he do that? Stiles raises his eyebrows, which only makes Derek sigh, “Just do it.”

Stiles tries then, tries to scoots forward on his butt. He manages until his back isn’t right against the tree anymore and then he has to stop. The second he’s completely supporting himself, he slumps forward, dangerously close to collapsing against the ground again. A wide hand slaps against his chest and pushes him back up, so he’s sitting on his own. There’s more rustling behind him, the feel of something moving against his back, and then Derek’s mumbling, “Lean back now.”

When Stiles doesn’t move, Derek’s hands grip at his hips and tug him back into the v of his legs. 

“What’re y’doing?” Stiles slurs, head lolling back against Derek’s chest, trying to see the man’s face. He catches sight of a sharp jaw and a cheekbone.

“Keeping you warm,” is the answer Derek gives as he flicks his (thankfully whole) jacket over the both of them like a blanket. 

Warmth washes over him from Derek’s body and the residual heat from the coat. It’s almost too much at first — Stiles’ body doesn’t know how to react properly. He’s still shaking, his head’s still throbbing with each beat of his heart, and his body decides to break out in a sweat. 

The whine of a hurt animal echoes through the clearing, and Stiles wonders what’s hurt, why is it making that noise, before he realizes that it’s him — he’s making that sound. He clamps his mouth shut and tries to stop, but Derek presses his hand against his chest. The whine fades out into silence as warmth seeps into his bones. 

“Don’t fall asleep,” Derek reminds him. Stiles murmurs a wordless reply, and does his best to relax. 

It’s not as easy as it sounds, relaxing — his head feels like it’s stuffed full of linen, like his skull has a huge gaping hole in it. His breathing is a bit better now that he’s not gulping in ice cold air by the lungful, but his chest still hurts. Everything would be easier, though, if he could just lean against Derek and go to sleep. A tiny bit of him wants to — it’d be simpler to just deal with whatever comes of it in the morning. If he dies, he dies. Maybe death would be peaceful, less painful than this.

Something clicks over in his brain and is completely and utterly outraged that he would even begin to think something like that. He has his father to think of. A small family, but a family nonetheless, and family was everything. He was the reason he signed up for this stupid war in the first place — Stiles wanted to save his father from it. Some stupid twisted messed up thing in his head said that if he went to war, his father wouldn’t have to. It wasn’t remotely true, never had been, but it let him sleep easy at night, even when the nights were bad.

They lean against the tree, against each other as time ticks on. Derek’s breathing never evens out, even though Stiles fully expects him to drift off. He tries his best not to sleep, tries not to let being warm, his head wound, and the cold push him under. He can’t do it alone, though. He shifts against Derek’s chest and then asks, with garbled words, “Did y’desert?”

Stiles isn’t sure if he expects an answer or not. It’s an unfair question, really. He doesn’t know this man from Adam, doesn’t know anything about his life, and the fifth question he asks him is about deserting from the army. Derek moves behind him, pulls himself up against the tree again. His hand is still against Stiles’ chest, big and warm against his sternum.

“Yes.”

He can’t leave anything alone, never has in his entire life. So he prods a finger into Derek’s wrist and then asks, “Why?”

Derek’s fingers twitch against his torso and a sigh ruffles his hair.

“I didn’t want to fight anymore,” he starts, taking a deep breath before continuing, “It’s not my war. I don’t…I was tired of battles, tired of the sound of guns, of walking all day and night, of being cold and hungry, of killing people I’ve never met, of killing people I don’t hate, people who probably don’t deserve it…so I left.”

Stiles rests his fingers against Derek’s wrist, not poking or prodding, just resting lightly against his skin for some sort of comfort. He’s not judging him — he doesn’t want to fight anymore, either. Doesn’t want to kill anyone, not again. He wants to be home, where it’s warm, where he knows where his next meal will be. He’s sixteen. Sixteen and he’s not sure how many men he’s killed. Sixteen and he has a wound on his skull that’s still bleeding, a wound that hurts more than anything else has in his entire life. 

“I just want to go home,” Derek adds, interrupting his thoughts. 

“M’too,” Stiles says, closing his eyes for a moment. His father’s face flashes across his mind, and he’s filled with the unbelievable need to see his dad again. He wants to see their house, and his friends, but mostly his dad. 

“You’ll get to go home,” Derek says, sliding his hand down from Stiles chest to his waist. Stiles moves his hand from Derek’s wrist, lets it flop down against the ground. Stiles misses the warmth of Derek’s hand almost immediately, but doesn’t say anything. He hopes Derek is right, hopes he makes it through the night so he can get back to his father. 

A beat passes, and then Stiles realizes what Derek said.

“Y’won’t?”

“I don’t have a home anymore,” Derek says, voice quiet. He’s gone very still against Stiles’ back, like he’s afraid to move, like that will draw attention to the conversation they’re having. Stiles eyes flick open, and turns just slightly to look back up at the other man. 

“Y’don’t?” 

“It burned down,” Derek answers, face blank. 

“Family?” Stiles asks, regretting the question almost immediately when a flash of hurt flicks across Derek’s features. It’s gone in an instant, replaced by the flat, forced stoic look from before. He answers quietly, in one word.

“Burned.”

Stiles hisses in a breath and slowly reaches across his abdomen to press his fingers into Derek’s wrist again, this time as a show of compassion. Derek doesn’t pull away, but his fingers dig into his hip for a split second. Stiles doesn’t say sorry. ‘Sorry’ could never cover anything like what Derek must have gone through. ‘Sorry’ is cheap and pathetic. 

He stays quiet, with his fingers against Derek’s skin. He stares across the clearing, watches the edge of the trees. Nothing is moving in the cold, icy air.

“You have a family?” The question takes him by surprise, snaps him out of the dull daze he had been drifting in. 

“Jus’ m’father,” Stiles manages. “He’s th’sheriff back home.”

“Oh,” Derek says, softly. He shifts once again, like he’s trying to find a comfortable spot against the rough bark of the tree. He stops after a minute, in just about the same position as he was in when he started, arm holding Stiles steady. Stiles moves himself around against him, doing his best to keep his head steady while trying to find a better way to lean on Derek. He ends up curled against the other man’s chest, Derek’s arm around his waist. It would be embarrassing, maybe, if it weren’t so warm.

“Try to rest now,” Derek murmurs, tapping a rhythm against Stiles’ hipbone. After a beat, he adds, “But don’t sleep.”

“’ll try,” Stiles replies, eyes already sliding shut. The pounding in his head isn’t as strong anymore, it’s a dull thud every now and then, a twinge when he moves the wrong way. It’s not good, though — it makes him want to fall asleep more, makes him want to squash his face into Derek’s shirt and sack out. He doesn’t, despite how lovely it would feel — the thought of his father all alone keeps him awake. 

The rest of the night is silent except for the occasional question from Derek (“Where’d you grow up?” “Beacon Hill, back up North.”), making sure he’s still awake. The older man shakes him gently each time, asks him something simple, and then lets the conversation fade back into silent nothingness. Stiles thinks Derek might drift off right before dawn, but the man pops to life as soon as the sun rises.

“We need to get you to a doctor,” is the first thing Derek says, after he carefully moves around Stiles so he can stand. Stiles watches him stretch with hazy eyes — everything is still fuzzy but his head doesn’t hurt as much anymore. 

“I dun thin’ I can walk,” Stiles mumbles, head rolling against the tree. Derek huffs out a breath, which fogs out into the cold air. 

“I’ll help you.”

Derek helps Stiles to his feet, gently puts Stiles’ arm around his shoulders and slides his own arm around Stiles’ waist. 

“Lean on me,” he says, carefully adjusting Stiles’ arm again. Stiles leans like he was told, putting as much weight as he can on the other man. He’s exhausted now, sure that any minute now, he’ll just collapse in on himself. 

“C’mon. We’ll go slow,” Derek murmurs, taking a step forward. Stiles winces as the step jostles him, but they move, then, through the trees. It’s slow, plodding pace they set, but they’re going. Soon they’ll reach the town, they’ll reach a fire, a house or an Inn, with food and real beds. There’ll be a doctor in town, a doctor who can fix his head. Things will be better, when they get to town.

They leave the clearing behind.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on [tumblr.](http://funvee.tumblr.com/)


End file.
